God Is Sneaky

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
“The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it (Isaiah 55:8-11, NLT).

God is sneaky.

What do I mean by that? I mean that I have been learning that God is producing great good even when things are going very bad, that God is very present even when things make us think He is very absent, and that God is hard at work when we don’t see Him working at all. He is sneaky because even though you and I have free will (whatever that means…but that is a subject for another post), are able to think and reason, and are habitually and hopelessly sinful, God always brings seems to bring about what He wants. Nothing we seem to do keeps God from doing what He wants to do and getting done what He wants to get done. Even when you think there is no way He can pull it off, He does. God is sneaky.

Now I will readily concede that Isaiah 55:8-11 is in no way an instance of God being sneaky. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This isn’t God tiptoeing round, it is Him bluntly, boldly, and unapologetically explaining why you don’t see Him coming, why nothing seems to trip Him up, and why He doesn’t worry about needing a “do over.”

What God is getting at in this passage is that He is omniscient, transcendent, and sovereign.

God is omniscient. He knows everything about everything. He knows everything that exists from all the stars in the sky (Psalms 147:4) to every last creature on the earth (Colossians 1:16). He knows everything that has happened, is happening, and everything that will happen (Psalm 139:1-6). He knows all the laws of nature and He knows how to suspend them when He wishes (job 38:22-30, Joshua 10:13). He knows every thought in every head and knows everything in every heart (1 Chronicles 28:9). He knows how to create from nothing (Ecclesiastes 11:5) and how to sustain everything He creates (Acts 17:28). Because of that, His wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are infinitely beyond what we are capable of. Therefore He can say, My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts…And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). God is omniscient.

God is transcendent. The Oxford Dictionary says that transcendent means “beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience, surpassing the ordinary, exceptional.” God is above and beyond us. He is not the least bit threatened by us (Isaiah 40:15-17). He is not part of creation, nor was He created at all (Isaiah 40:25). He created us, but nothing created Him. He is totally different from anything we know (Psalm 90:1). He is eternal (Isaiah 57:15). He doesn’t grow tired (Isaiah 40:28). He doesn’t change (Psalm 55:19). He is the only thing that just “is” (Exodus 3:14). Because of that He says of Himself, just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). God is transcendent.

God is sovereign. 288 times God says of Himself or is addressed as Sovereign Lord in the Bible. What does that mean, that God is sovereign? It means that God has the right, the authority, and the power to do whatever He wants in and with His creation. Psalms 115:3 says (NAS) Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases. The NLT translates it he does as he wishes. If He wants to save, He does. If He wants to punish, He does (Isaiah 43:11-13). He doesn’t need to ask for permission or look for approval (Isaiah 45:9-12). When He commands something to happen, it does (Ezekiel 12:25). When we think we are advancing our own plans, we are inevitably advancing His (Proverbs 19:21). Nothing happens behind His back (Matthew 10:29). He is so in control that He knows what will happen and is not afraid to declare it (Isaiah 46:8-10). And therefore God unapologetically declares, The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.
It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it (Isaiah 55:11). God is sovereign.

God is omniscient, transcendent, and sovereign. Because He is, He is able to operate in wondrous, over-the-top, and even terrifying ways (The Exodus, making the sun stand still, feeding the 5000, raising the dead). But these same attributes can be exercised just as effectively in the mundane minutia of everyday life, and therefore God can be very sneaky. This will, God willing, be the subject of my next few posts.